


How Many Angels

by roundabout



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Sadstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-27
Updated: 2012-02-27
Packaged: 2017-10-31 20:20:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/347993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roundabout/pseuds/roundabout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Dave Strider and you're ten years old, curled up on the couch with your shades on your nose and one of Bro's old sweaters wrapped around your shoulders. The tv is blaring infomercials, and you are definitely not waiting up for your brother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Many Angels

Your name is Dave Strider and you're ten years old, curled up on the couch with your shades on your nose and one of Bro's old sweaters wrapped around your shoulders. The tv is blaring infomercials, and you are definitely not waiting up for your brother.

When Bro finally comes home, it's four in the morning and he's drunker than you've ever seen him. He latches and locks the door with all the care he can muster from his alcohol-numbed fingers; his steps are a parody of his characteristic silent grace. He takes a long moment to just sort of slump over against the wall to breathe before moving further into the apartment on unsteady feet. He turns towards his bed and starts when he sees you and it's full-bodied and so, so open that you're not quite sure what to think.

"'Sup, little bro?" His words slur together as he crosses the room, stumbles over a discarded smuppet, and flings himself on to the cushion beside you. He smells like cheap vodka and cigarettes.

You don't reply, don't even look at him. You nod at the television, pull your legs tight to your chest, and keep your face forward. He takes off his glasses, tossing them carelessly to the floor, rubs his eyes, and sighs.

It makes you angry to see him discard his signature shades so casually. It feels like he's throwing away an ingrained part of being a Strider and it sets your teeth on edge. You slide off the futon, pick them up, and lay them gently on the computer desk where he can't step on them by accident. You still refuse to look at him and make your way to bed.

"Dave."

It's the emotion in his voice that stops you in your tracks. You can feel his eyes on the back of your neck and when he repeats your name again, it's accompanied by a plea. You turn around and sit back down.

You're not panicking because Strider's don't panic. Striders stay calm, cool, and collected always, and always means no matter what. Except Bro is leaning forward with his elbows against his knees, face cupped in his hands, tension lining his shoulders, and he looks like he might start crying.

You decide it's the alcohol and don't ask him what's wrong.

"Dave," he repeats like a mantra, "Dave, Dave, Dave."

"Bro, you're scaring me."

Your mouth moves before your brain catches up and you can't take the words back when they're out in the open. He flinches and looks over at you with the corner of his mouth crooked up, his expression all wrong. You immediately regret speaking. You want to go to bed.

"I'm gonna tell you a story," he says, taking off his hat and smoothing down his hair. He doesn't throw it on the floor like he did his shades and you thank mercy for small miracles. "It's a shitty story, but everything about it's shitty so not even the best or the most ironic storyteller could weave their magic into this shit and make it as sick as the fires a good Strider spits on a daily basis. And I need you to be a big man and take off them snazzy-ass shades for it 'cause it's shitty, but it's serious shit, you feel me?"

You watch him. You want to say no, and you want to go to bed and pretend this never happened when you wake up. You want to wake with the sun and check the pinhole camera you left on the roof to make sure a bird didn't shit on it like last time. You want to try your hand at making breakfast for Bro instead of the other way around for a change, leaving little white pills and a glass of water by his head for when he wakes up like you're the goddamn hangover fairy. You want him to put on his hat and his shades and tweak your fucking nose and make you brush your teeth before bed.

You take off your shades and hold them in your lap and meet his eyes.

"Once upon a time," he starts seriously, folding his legs under him and turning sideways so he can face your properly, "a little boy is gonna play a game with his friends."

You don't stop him to tell him that you're pretty sure that isn't proper grammar and that you learned about tenses in English class last week. He sways in place and he pauses to collect his thoughts. You keep your mouth clamped firmly shut.

"It's gonna look like a sweetass game and it's gonna be hella exciting. He'll get to do some cool shit and chill with his cool friends. He'll get to play big damn hero for a while."

He stops again and props his chin up on his hand. He leans into the back of the futon for balance and sighs again and you really wish he would stop doing that because it makes you nervous and you hate feeling nervous. 

"But then a lot of shit is going to happen and the game is gonna go sour, like that time we forgot about the milk in the back corner of the fridge because it was behind the throwing stars and we thought something had crawled in there and died. The game is gonna go bad and bad things are gonna happen and it's not going to feel so shiny or new or special any more. And the little boy is going to grow up a bit too fast and a bit too shitty and the person that loves him more than anything in the universe might not always be there to look after him and keep him safe and snap off the dicks of any motherfuckers unfortunate enough to mess with a Stri- to mess with a bitchin' son of a bitch."

You catch his slip and frown at him. You poke his knee and you're about to tell him to go to bed and sleep it off when he catches your hand and cradles it in between his two massive leather-clad palms.

"When you were a baby, you screamed all the fucking time. Did I ever tell you that? Doctors said you had colic or some shit. Your screamed and bitched to the point where the fuckers in the apartment below us called the fucking cops because they thought I was smacking you around or snorting cocaine off the plush rump of a mexican hooker instead of feeding you or something. I used to hold you in the crook of my arm, because you were tiny like that, and I used to rock you and rock you and rock you and rap about diapers and formula and rent money and the weather until my arms felt like lead and you settled in for the next few hours and we both got some sleep. I never thought I'd give two shits about another human being before you came along and then when you did I forgot how to give a shit about anything else."

"I have no fucking clue what you're talking about," you tell him. You want to put back on your ironic shades and go curl up in bed because this is too much and he's too drunk. He reaches out and mindlessly zips up your stolen sweater for you. His fingers fumble and it takes him a few tries.

"I know you don't," he replies, and he scrunches up his nose in exactly the same way he told you not to do when you were six. It makes you kind of want to smile and kind of want to punch him. "I hope you never do. But-but just in case. Just in case, I want you to know that I love you and I'll never stop loving you, even when I'm not around to let you know I love you. Can you promise me that you'll remember that for me? Please? Strider to Strider? And a Strider never breaks his word, so you know I'm being serious here."

You promise. He lets go of your hand and holds out his pinky. He gives you that look he gets when he's being a 'serious parent' and doesn't stop until you lock your pinky with his. You don't point out that pinky swears are for babies because you know he won't listen and that they're too ironic for him to care.

"Swear on smuppets?"

You roll you eyes and he uncoils one leg enough to jab you in the side with his big toe.

"I swear on smuppets."

He sticks out his pointer finger too and makes you lock it up. His hand dwarfs yours and it takes some maneuvering for you to make your fingers fit together.

"Swear on Cal?"

That's when it hits you that he's actually serious because sometimes you think that he loves Cal as much as he loves you. His eyes are impossibly orange in the blue light of the tv and you hold his stare and nod.

"I swear on Cal."

He smiles and it makes his whole face light up. You can't keep yourself from smiling back. He chokes up a little and you feel your cheeks turn pink. He doesn't flashstep so much as flashscoot across the futon to mash you against his chest in an awkward hug. He noses you hair and breathes you in and you laugh a little hopelessly at the way your nose is crushed against his collarbone and at the fact that under all the scents of alcohol and smoke, he still smells like the cotton candy perfume you sprayed him in the face with that morning.

He plants a big sloppy kiss to your temple and dumps you off the futon, sprawling facedown in the space where you had just been. You open your mouth as you stand, rubbing your ass with the heel of your hand, ready to crack wise about him tossing you out of his bed, but he flings an arm out at you. He holds up one finger and hisses out a long "Ssssssssssssssssssh!"

You grin at him, knowing he can't see it, and take the opportunity to muss up his hair. He squirms on his belly in that way that he only does on the rare occasions he has a few too many and you get the upper hand, and you giggle and rap the top of his head with your knuckles. He twists and tries to grab your wrist, but you dance out of the way before he even comes close.

He falls asleep the second you're more than a foot away from him and you dump out the bucket of cleaning supplies from under the sink into the tub and place it on the floor next to his face before you go to bed. You wake up at noon instead of sunrise and check on your camera before he wakes up, and you leave a handful of Advil and a bottle of orange Faygo beside the bucket. You make burnt toast for breakfast and you make enough for two. Bro makes it to the bathroom before he pukes, and even manages to shower off the hum of last night before rejoining the land of the living without spewing up again. He downs the Advil dry and look at you like you're a god.

You don't mention last night because you still don't really understand what he was rambling on about, but he doesn't bring it up either. You don't catch the sad, proud looks he shoots your way when you're not paying attention. 

He eats your terrible burnt toast and knocks his foot against yours under the table and when you drag him to the roof for strife, he does his level best to pretend he isn't so hungover that the sun is blinding even through his shades and that every flashstep isn't one flashstep closer to vomming all over the side of the building.

He lets you win and doesn't say 'I love you'. You help him up and don't say 'I love you too'.

\---

Your name is Dave Strider and you're thirteen years old, and you finally understand what your Bro was talking about that night he came home drunk when you were ten. 

His body is cold when you find him; the pool of blood he's lying in is already starting to coagulate. You sit on your ass next to him, knees pulled up to your chest, and you can't rip your eyes away.

He's not wearing his hat and he's not wearing his shades and his eyes are dull and and glazed and milky and everything feels wrong, wrong, wrong. All you can do is stare.

You know that the sword in his chest is his the moment you lay eyes on it, and you don't quite want to believe that it's there. Bro taught you everything he knew about sword fighting and he is the best there is and you know that angle. You know it means that Bro was flat on his back when he was stabbed and you want refuse to believe that it's possible, just like you want to refuse to believe that he's dead. You want to take him back home and give him an Advil and make him toast when he wakes up sick in the morning.

You're no stranger to dead things. You've got enough of them in jars in your closet back home, floating in formaldehyde in the dark. But you can't force yourself to touch him, can't take his hand like you desperately want to. You can't touch him to close his eyelids like he deserves.

You get up and feel cold. You contemplate taking his sword, but taking that away from him when he has already lost everything else seems cruel. You turn your back and walk away.

You do not say 'I love you'.

**Author's Note:**

> _How many angels can dance on the head of a pin  
>  -a phrase that serves as a metaphor for wasting time debating topics of no practical value. _
> 
>  
> 
> This is a response to [this](http://homesmut.livejournal.com/15023.html?thread=31321775#t31321775) prompt on the kink meme. Again, it seems I couldn't help myself. I'm not exactly spectacular at writing Striders, and I probably deserve to be hanged for my abuse of the word 'shit'. But this is what I ended up with.
> 
> I envision Bro as a good guardian. I think he tries his level best, but he still does stupid shit like coming home a bit too drunk on occasion. I had a whole spiel about Bro finding out the SBURB was in development at the beginning, but I thought everything worked better without it.
> 
> Either way, hope it's worth the read.


End file.
